Many of the lubricating fluids which exist today for use in facilitating the cutting or slicing of silicon wafers have been designed primarily with the intention of prolonging the life of the blade used in the slicing or cutting operation.
This interest in reducing the cost of blade replacement can result in the use of lubricants which do not produce high quality wafers. These lubricants will frequently provide wafers which exhibit a high level of imperfections. These imperfections can be demonstrated in terms of "thickness", "bow" and "taper". Some variance in thickness, bow and taper is tolerated. The elimination of these problems is left to subsequent lapping and polishing steps.
These problems exist for simple mechanical reasons. An ultra thin wafer is being sliced from a large block of silicon. If lubricatation isn't sufficient, the thin wafer will vibrate as it is being sliced. This vibration can result in a certain unevenness in the cut. Additionally, as that thin wafer is being sliced it could tend to bow out slightly from the main block of silicon. The lubricant is designed to reduce the friction of the blade cutting through the silicon block.
It would be advantageous to find a lubricant which would sufficiently reduce the friction found in this cutting process to minimize the problems of thickness variation, bowing, and undue taper.